Satires in bronze, full of humour or biting sarcasm, questions and answers that often evoke strong emotions –those are characteristic features in the sculptures of Nelson Carrilho. Identity - who cares?, We are going to Holland, Waiting for God and the installation Fools Parade. Power and impotence, justice and injustice. Obviously, politics and the church are strongly embedded in his works.
Carrilho is from Curaçao, an island swarming with the bronze busts of the former conquistadors. They adorn beautiful squares with benches no one ever dares to sit on in the burning heat of the merciless sunshine. Yes, I sat there once, a tourist in shorts, I watched and heard Nelson in the back of my mind: 'Megalomania from the past, ridiculous idolatry'. Identity - who cares? refers to this idiocy (it was made in celebration of the five-hundredth anniversary in 1999 of the discovery of Curaçao ), but it also lashes out at the current authorities, who feel themselves losing their grip on the citizens and wriggle to hold on to their powers at all costs.
The same is true with Fools Parade. What is written on those large papers on the wall? The double–faced politician, does he look with content at the prose obeyed by the masses unthinkingly or does he avert his eyes from pure poetry telling the truth? And who are the ones guarding the word? A jury? Judges? Masks?
We gaan naar Holland (We are going to Holland, from the series Fools parade) – a popular innocent nursery rhyme, but also topical: the slumping economy, the result of an incompetent government, causes many to flee the island.
(We are going to Holland / on a French boat. /The masts are made of gold / and the flag is the Dutch flag. /Ferries on ferries, /people on people, / a hat with a black ribbon, /To Holland we are sailing …')
Carrilho monitors world politics with a suspicious eye. He is an observer, who cannot intervene, but at times airs his vehement comments. 'It's a carnival, a fake world. 'As in Waiting for God, where, engraved in the wall it reads: 'I never promised you a rose garden'. Cynism? Humour? Man clings to so many symbols, what would happen if they disappear, and walls are demolished like the Berlin wall?
Nelson Carrilho's works do not only hold an accusation, they also tell about liberation and the emotions it can evoke in people. You do not have to visit Curaçao or Amsterdam to understand Nelson Carrilho's works, they speak for themselves; you do not have to know Nelson in person to appreciate the beauty of his works, but I consider myself lucky that he was willing to tell me what I am telling you now and point out details I would otherwise have missed. Such as the wink in La femme et l'oiseau (The woman and the bird); a woman tells a secret to her best friend the bird, even though she should know that in literature the bird is the symbol of indiscretion. Two vices having a tète-à-tète.
Carrilho's social engagement also shows in the work that has found a place in Holland and on Curaçao outdoors. In the Vondelpark in Amsterdam stands a large statue he made when the black youngster Kerwin Duinmeijer was murdered. It is an anti-racism monument: Mama Baranka (Mother rock). Mindful of the saying: 'When you hit a woman, you hit a rock; this statue is a homage to all mothers'. In the Westerpark, also in the capital, we find the statue Dragers van Verre (Carriers from a far) –a symbol of multicultural Amsterdam. Its theme is the constant migration of people from one continent to another. The sculpture on mount Arrarat on Curaçao does not have a name. One name would not even suffice. Nelson showed it to me several years ago. I walked around it in a wide circle and took a picture every other metre. Every picture shows a different image. The sculpture is crowned with universal symbols such as water, fish and wheel. It is an enormous manifestation of power that joins battle with the huge space surrounding it. I saw the artist win.
Nelson Carrilho, born on Curaçao (Netherlands Antilles) on March 30 1953, moved to Holland in 1964, where he graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts "Artibus" in Utrecht in 1980. Since then he has developed a sense, a talent to touch modern man.
Like one critic wrote, and I gladly agree with him: 'Biting humour features many of his sculptures, as does poetry, which makes his works put the darker sides of the human character in a pleasant perspective.
Nelson Carrilho explores the human soul with a smile.
Sjoerd Kuyper, 2000

Jacobus Albertus [KOOS] de Wet, born 6th of September 1973 in Pretoria, South Africa.
Throughout his life he has lived in Hartbeespoort, Ceres, Johannesburg and Cape Town. Koos has explored several different creative fields such as advertising art, digital design, animation, decor design and even worked as a night-club DJ. Above all he loves painting. He has discovered his gift at the age of four years old, when he could copy the drawings that his father drew of cars, aeroplanes, people etc. Through his work he aims to capture the emotional and spiritual content within “simple” everyday life subject matter, past and present. His love for his environment and his fascination with people of all cultures is evident, yet he is mostly drawn to the concept of form, colour and texture. The artist explores the language of shape and colour. He likes to experiment with different mediums. Streched canvas would mostly form the surface of each artwork, but sometimes he would create wall panels or screens by using wooden off-cuts, pieces of ceramic, paints, stains, paper cuts or anything he gets to lay his hands on. Koos has always been extremely versatile in his painting. Without any formal education in the arts (except for the extra mural art lessons during school) he was forced to study most different genres of painting as well as the works of the great masters in his own time. By practically “trying everything” and by being a very self-critical perfectionist, he became a very fast learner and improved at a serious rate. Koos does not want to be part of a particular genre more than to fall under contemporary. This gives him enough room to create. Koos sees himself as a philosophical intelectual, mysteries theologan and wisdom seeker. He strives to be a material minimalist in this modern day and age of mass consumption. He urges the world to go back to study the ideas of Socrates, because it has now become an urgency. The world cannot carry on consuming at this rate. There is a massive global misconception of what is really important in life. To be surrounded by art is such a great virtue. May it be at home or in office. Art inspires and influences emotions. It makes a big difference in these ice cold, dirty grey worlds many of us find ourselves in. Through his art, Koos tries to be unattached to politics or negative subject matter. At the end of the day his sole purpose in his works is to beautify ones surroundings and to challenge the intelect may it be. Paradox, humor and change are three major ingredients in Koos’s paintings. He refuses to ellaborate on this, but challenges the viewer to seek this in his works.
He had the opportunity to sell most of his works through his co-owned shop/gallery with his wife Anastasia Sarantinou, called Induna Gallery at The Palms Lifestyle and Decor Centre, Cape Town. This gave him a chance to get direct feedback from the public on his works. They sold the shop end 2004 and are now painting full-time. Solo Exhibitions: Memory Blocks – Third I Gallery, Cape Town, December 2003 – January 2004. Sub-journey – White House Inn, Knysna during the Knysna/Nederburgh Arts Experience, October 1998. Group Exhibitions: Spring Celebration of Enlightenment Exhibition, Parkhurst September 2005 Standard Bank Arts Awards, Pretoria Art Museum 1995.
With Gallery K&B * REALISME06 and ‘De Keuze van de Dokter’ in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

GERSHOM was born in the Netherlands and lived for many years in Amsterdam.
From his years living with the ancient Amsterdam canals he came to realize that the 1960’s were perhaps not superior to the 1690s.
After getting his PhD in Psychology and Epidemiology he moved to Los Angeles to study sculpture and painting at Otis College of Art and Design.
Currently, he teaches general neuro psychology and the psychology and anatomy of perception at both Otis College of Art and Design and at Art Center College of Design. At Otis he also teaches drawing and composition, and rendering in oil paint.
He lectures both locally and internationally on perception and imagination and he lives happily with his wife Donna and daughter Mishala, and with their dog Kye, an Australian shepherd.
His Dutch name, Rob Spruijt, is both difficult to pronounce and to spell for English speakers, so he signs with Gershom, his Hebrew name.
All Gershom’s still lifes are painted in oil on panel using traditional techniques of layering and glazes. The frames are handmade for each painting by Gershom.

Born 1959. Nationaliy: The Netherlands. Erni Kwast (1959) studied painting at Gerrit Rietveld Academy and Royal Academy of Art. Both academies are in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The style of her painting is best characterised as lyrical figurative. At first sight, Erni’s paintings show apparently uncomplicated events: people are doing basic things in idyllic surroundings. However, it becomes apparent that an atmosphere is created rather than acts shown: faces are often turned, the acts appear not to bear any relation to their goals and human figures seem to live in a proprietary world that is epitomized by landscape elements. The colour effects that characterise Erni’s paintings give them a poetic expression: summer-like yet melancholical, sheltered but steamy too. We watch the story of daily life, which is of all times. Erni Kwast, although very much an exponent of modernity, is very aware of classical painting. She is particularly inspired by renaissance artist Piero della Francesca. Sources of inspiration from more recent times are Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso and Mark Rothko, as well as sculptors Mario Marini, Charlotte van Pallandt and Rik Wouters.

TOYIN LOYE is a modern representative of the ancient African art tradition, a committed propagator of his cultural heritage. This is also refpected in his
poetry, which is often integrated in his works.
He experiments with carved photography and objects cut from aluminium.
Toyin comes from a royal house. His father was Obaloye of Ijebu Jesa.
The artist grew up with a rich Yoruba tradition. The artistic expressions often associated with a royal house has immensely influenced his work.

Meloquez’s work is characterized by a unique and incomparable language, colors and shapes that attract the viewer, prompting him to reflection.
The project emerged from the artist’s passion for colors and materials, coupled with his ability to memorize the shapes around him.
Born in Colombia, begins his training to the faculty of industrial design and engineering in Bogota, where he acquired knowledge of the materials, their physicochemical characteristics and the conception of a project.
His ambition to learn, leads him to sign up for the Spilimbergo mosaic school in Italy, where he will have the opportunity to study more deeply the color theory, the decorative techniques and developing his handicraft.
His experience increases with the collaboration of designers, artists and artisans, of several mosaic restoration work, like the Notre Dame de la Garde in Marsiglia basilica , Roquebrune church ´s floor, the Castle Franzensburg of Vienna, and also public and private works such as the mosaic for Ground Zero in New York.

The desire of squeezing all the ideas he has collected over time becomesincreasingly stronger. The study of the prints and architectures of fashion, and the colors of their native culture, his main source of inspiration, the artist creates a personal language. This shape of expression allows you to put color and shape in the beauty of simplicity, to place in the foreground what normally goes unnoticed, leaving the viewer free to make his point of view.

Anastasia Sarantinou was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa on 31st January 1965.
She finished her Art Studies in 1986 (majoring in printmaking and specifically in silk-screening.) As photography was one of her favourite subjects in Art School she also chose as her first job that of photographer for a local newspaper. Working for a newspaper gave her the opportunity to write as well. She thus started an art column in the local newspaper about artists in the Goldfields area. Through her interviews with artists she became very involved with the then South African Arts Association and later became the chairman of the SAAA in the Goldfields region. She moved to Cape Town in 1992 and shortly afterwards opened a small gallery/shop in Kalk Bay where she started selling her paintings to foreign clients as well as local Capetonians and visitors from other provinces. She also in this time did many commissions for restaurants, hotels and specific clients. She and her partner (artist, Koos de Wet) moved their business to the Palms Lifestyle and decor centre in 2001 where she continued to sell her work and also started doing commissions for decorators. Being very involved in the running of the gallery/shop and producing artwork daily gave her very little time to participate in exhibitions during 1992-2004. Although Anastasia majored in printmaking she chose to pursue painting as her main medium of expression. Having studied all the different printmaking techniques she started to apply her knowledge of different materials and the reaction they have on one another to her painting work. Experimenting with different materials, chemicals and paints in one artwork has become the core of her work. Experimentation and art to her are parallel and she believes that she would stop painting if she could not experiment any longer. “I enjoy the process much more than the outcome” she says of her work.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Aug 1998 – Frankfurt, Germany
Aug 1999 – Frankfurt, Germany
Aug 2000 – Frankfurt, Germany
Dec 2001 – Dresden, Germany
Sept 2005 – ‘Spring Celebration of Enlightenment’, Johannesburg
May/June 2006 – ‘Dual investigation’ (with Koos de Wet) Cape Town – 38 Special Gallery
SOLO EXHIBITION Jan 1998 – SPIER Wine Farm, Stellenbosch